


o lord, o lord, what have i done? i've fallen in love with a man on the run

by youareiron_andyouarestrong



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe-Catch Me if You Can, Barry is a criminal!au, Con Artists, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 21:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7773433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youareiron_andyouarestrong/pseuds/youareiron_andyouarestrong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry Allen never intended to be a criminal. It just seemed to happen that way.</p><p>(Catch Me If You Can!au, featuring Barry Allen as the con man who everyone believes and no one can catch, Joe West as the detective determined to bring him to justice and Iris West as the reporter who thinks he’s a bit too clever for his own good.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	o lord, o lord, what have i done? i've fallen in love with a man on the run

Barry would like to make one thing entirely clear: he _did not_ intend to become a criminal.

But certainly he didn’t intend to stop once he started.

He was put in foster care after his mother’s murder--and no relatives stepped forward to claim him. Henry Allen was put in prison for life for Nora’s death and no one believed Barry when he kept telling them, _it was the man in yellow. The one in the lightning._ And he was too old for most families looking to adopt or foster.

So he stayed in the system, burying himself in books and studies, dodging bullies and social workers. If he worked hard enough, proved he was a good _person_ —then he could work his way out. He would make something of himself. And he would get his dad out of prison.

 _Just—be the good boy your mom and I know you are,_ his dad told him, one time Barry had managed to come and see him. _Be good._

And Barry had _tried._ He really had. But what difference did it make when no one cared?

The first con wasn’t intentional. Someone genuinely thought he was a substitute teacher. And Barry just _ran_ with it. He’d gotten away with it too—for three whole weeks! Before the vice principal found out and called the house mother of his group home. The bruises he’d gotten had been almost worth it.

Barry had seen enough. He was young, he had an honest face and wide eyes and a sincere smile—people _believed_ him. People _trusted_ him. No one would ever think quiet, studious Barry Allen would ever try to deliberately set out to _lie_ to them. No one even thought he was capable of that.

So he worked harder at it, like he studied chemistry and physics and biology. Got better at looking someone dead in the eye and lying with complete sincerity. Found out that the best lies were the ones that had truth mixed in—or the ones that were so outrageous they simply _had_ to be true. People liked you when you could sympathize with them, reassure them—you were on their side. You _wanted_ to help them.

And the worst part of this whole charade—Barry _knew_ this wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to do what his dad said—to _be good._ To do good. There just didn’t seem to be a better way to get out of it.

And he needed the funds. Good lawyers weren’t cheap and the best ones cost more than he or his father could ever afford. So it wouldn’t be for forever; it just had to be enough to get his father out. It just had to be _one more con, one more mark_. Then he could stop. He _would_ stop.

Wouldn’t he?

//

Joe West was as unamused any overworked, frustrated detective could be.

Central City seemed to be turned upside down by a series of cons, most of them involving mentions of a young man who seemed to be barely older than his own daughter. A series of false names— _Hal Jordan, Bruce Kent, Clark Wayne_ —people who reportedly were waiting for an actual cop to show up to a crime scene only to be met with an apparently sincere CSI. The false CSI would investigate crime scene, ask a few questions and then apparently disappear into the crowds—having made off more than a few unsuspecting wallets and some critical information.

He didn’t like it. Not at all.

It was one thing to run a con, but to impersonate a member of the police force and pretending to be _helping_ people grated on Joe’s conscience.

To make matters worse, there was _no_ paper trail for the imposter. Nothing! He might as well have appeared out of thin air. No priors, no indication where he might go next or what his preferred target was. Just random.

Joe might’ve been less invested in bringing this perp down if the little bastard hadn’t tricked him and _stolen his wallet._

//

It was the picture that did it.

Barry hadn’t _meant_ to steal that cop’s wallet. But he’d shown up so unexpectedly the crime scene he was supposed to be casing for Len, and at this point it was a reflex.

Unlike most pickpockets, Barry didn’t take credit cards. Usually once the person realized their wallet was stolen, the first thing they did was cancel them, so it had limited efficacy. What Barry mostly took was just the cash, and left the rest of it alone. He wasn’t about to take social security numbers or IDs, though the Snart siblings and Rory had told him multiple times how stupid that was. Barry didn’t care. He had to have some kind of standards.

Joseph Donovan West had a fairly typical wallet, with one exception.

The photo tucked behind the cards.

A photo of a young woman Barry’s own age, with a face as lovely and as perfect as a cameo, and a smile like sunshine. On the back was written in neat block print, all caps: _TO DADDY. LOVE, IRIS_ _._

It couldn’t be anyone else but his daughter.

In general, you didn’t mess with cop’s families. That led to trouble, and a good way to get every cop in the city on your ass. If you messed with a child, then you became outlaw, cast out. No fellow thief or con would help you. Not even the infamous James Jesse had been an exception to that rule.

Barry should’ve put the picture back. He should’ve taken the cash and left, leaving it at the nearest precinct, as was his habit (another stupid trait). But he could not stop staring at the picture, at the face of Joseph West’s daughter. Iris West. He even recognized the name, seen it in the newspapers. She’d written some articles about a few of his more spectacular cons (honestly, that had mostly been the Snarts’ doing, not his). She even had a blog dedicated to the links between history and unexplained happenings.

He wanted to see her smile in real life, see that smile directed at him.

Even if doing so got him arrested.

//

 “I think you have a stalker,” Linda Park told Iris.

“I have no such thing,” Iris replied, replying to a comment on her blog.

“Then what would you call it?” Linda asked dubiously.

“A concerned citizen,” said Iris firmly.

“Is that what you call messages left on your blog telling you _exactly_ where a crime or scam is currently going down at that moment?” Linda wanted to know.

“I pass the information on to my dad,” Iris pointed out.

“Yeah, and _he’s_ not buying it either,” Linda said.

Iris frowned and turned back to her computer screen.

True, it was a little odd (no, not odd, _weird_ ) that some random faceless stranger was passing along information about various crimes and cons to _her_ of all people instead of, say, the _police._ Whatever it was, it was working. Several big crimes had been busted in the past few weeks, the CCPD was getting a lot of good press, which was better than the _bad_ press it’d received earlier in the year, due to those unexplained rash of scams, and that they hadn’t caught the guy. Those had _not_ been fun conversations that Iris had had with Joe.

“I don’t understand it,” Joe said when she’d come home that night. “And I don’t like it.”

“Isn’t the fact you’ve collared at least _three_ big name criminals in the past two weeks a great thing?” Iris asked.

“I would like it more,” said Joe grimly, “if I knew where this information was coming from. And I’d like to know even more why they’re telling _you._ ”

“I just have an honest face,” Iris suggested and her dad smiled reluctantly.

“Baby, it’s not you I doubt, honest face or not,” Joe said. “It’s the fact that whoever this is, they seem fixated on you, and that’s dangerous. For anyone. Whoever’s doing this has some kind of connection to the criminals in this city and you could get caught in the middle of it.”  

And Iris _knew_ this, she wasn’t stupid, cop’s daughter after all. And honestly, she’d like to know too, whoever was sending her this information.

He was clever about it, whoever it was. Iris wasn’t sure why she thought it was a guy, it was just a hunch on her end. That and the fact that whoever it was seemed to be _flirting_ with her.  

It was nothing more than intuition and Iris knew perfectly well that in any line of work, cop or reporter, intuition was not enough. They needed facts, they needed _proof_.

Which was why it seemed perfectly reasonable to respond to the messages.

 _Thank you for the information,_ she responded to the latest one. _You ever going to come in so I can thank you properly?_

The reply dinged in her inbox a few seconds later: **_Why Miss West, I thought you wanted to protect your sources._**

_I do, if I knew my sources name._

**_Sorry. Can’t tell you that._ **

_What_ can _you tell me?_

**_That there’s a robbery going to do down on 5th and Cross Ave. tonight at 1 AM. Let your father know._ **

Iris blinked at the message. _You know my dad?_

**_Let’s say we’re familiar._ **

Iris stared at the screen for a long moment, weighing her options, before she finally decided to write, _Are you dangerous?_

 ** _Not to you,_** was the almost instant response. **Never _to you. And I’ll do all in power to keep it that way._**

That was the last message of the night. Iris went to bed after alerting her father what she’d been told with her thoughts swimming in all kinds of directions, mostly wondering about what kind of criminal _wanted_ to be caught.

//

The job had gone wrong.

The job had gone so very, very wrong and there was now a dead civilian and a mortally wounded cop. And for that, Barry knew it was his fault, just as much as it was the Mardon brothers.

“We _agreed,_ ” he snarled at Leonard and Clyde for the millionth time. “When we work together, there are _no casualties!_ No deaths! That means you just don’t _shoot_ the guy who’s trying to get out of the way!”

“He wasn’t moving fast enough,” said Clyde with sullen defiance.

“You and your brother were moving too slow,” said Snart coldly. “When you work with us, we agreed that no one dies. No matter how trigger-happy you two seem to get.”

Mark glared at them. “How did the cops even _know_ we were going to hit that joint, huh? Who could’ve _told_ them?” the last part of that sentence was definitely aimed at Barry.

“Allen needed that job more than any of us,” replied Snart. “It’s in his best interest that we pulled it off, but we _didn’t._ So now, thanks to you and your amateur brother, we need to find another way.”

“Who are you calling an amateur?” snarled Clyde.

Snart rolled his eyes so hard Barry wondered if he might hurt himself. “Clearly, _you._ Now get out of here, the both of you. We need to fix this.”

After the Mardon brothers slunk away into the night, Snart tuned to Barry, his eyes hard. “You know Allen, when you first started telling that reporter about the _other_ jobs getting done around town, Rory and Lisa thought I should just get rid of you. For good.”

Barry swallowed hard as Snart kept talking. “But no, I said, it’s fine. He’s getting rid of the competition for us. Getting the small time off the streets. And that’s fine, Allen, but when your misguided need to be noble gets in the way of _our_ jobs, then you and I are going to have a problem. Understand?”

“I didn’t tell her about tonight’s job,” said Barry. _True._ “But _you_ didn’t tell me that you’d gotten the Mardon brothers involved in this one.” _Also true._ “And where the Mardon brothers go, trouble follows.” _True._

“We needed them,” Snart said. “But you’re right. They’re more trouble than they’re worth most of the time.”

This affirmation did not allow Barry to relax for a second.

“You think you’re above all this, Allen,” Snart said, adjusting the sleeves of his oversized jacket. “You think that because you have a conscience, that somehow makes you immune. It doesn’t. It just makes you just as much in the filth as the rest of us, because you were supposed to have been ‘raised better.’

 “You’re not better than us just because you feel guilty,” Snart said. “Remember that, and quit trying to get above yourself.”

Barry left without another word, the words ringing in his ears, his father’s voice and Snart’s overlapping.

_Be the good boy your mom and I know you are._

_You’re just as much in the filth as the rest of us._

He’d spend so much time telling himself that this part of his life wasn’t for forever, that he could stop, _would_ stop, just as soon as he got his dad out of prison.

What frightened him was that he didn’t know _how._

//

Iris hadn’t heard from her mystery informant for about a week. She was starting to think he’d (or she) disappeared for good, when she was working late one night, a comment from them popped up on her latest blog post.

**_Can we meet?_ **

Iris stared at the message in astonishment for a moment before quickly typing back, _This is a change._

**_Call it a change of heart._ **

Iris frowned and chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment. _For good?_  

**_For now. Where can we meet?_ **

Iris looked at the clock. Eleven-fifteen. Where was private enough that they would feel comfortable?

_You know Jitters?_

**_Who doesn’t know Jitters?_ **

_Meet me on the rooftop in half an hour._

Iris logged off without checking to make sure they’d responded. She snatched up her purse and rushed out, heart pounding.

The faster she moved, the less likely she would change her mind and do something sensible, like call her father.

//

Joe West had been keeping tabs on his daughter’s blog, in a roundabout, absentminded sort of way, right up until the mysterious informant started passing along information to her. Then he started to pay much closer attention.

When he saw the message on the post— _meet me at Jitters in half an hour_ —he waited for exactly fifteen minutes for Iris to call him and let him know what was happening.

She didn’t call.

Cisco Ramon was one of their tech guys, a whiz with a computer and anything electronic. Joe dragged him along with a long distance radio to hear what was being said.

Joe would not feel guilty about putting a bug in his daughter’s purse.

//

Barry paced nervously on the rooftop at Jitters, nerves wound tight. Every instinct he had was _screaming_ at him to run, to go, make a break for it. This was easily the stupidest thing he’d ever done and most likely he wouldn’t live to regret it. If a cop didn’t shoot him first, Snart would.

But then Iris West walked onto the rooftop and he forgot about everything else.

He _had_ put the picture back in Detective West’s wallet, made sure to. But he’d started looking for her face, for her by-line in the newspaper, on her blog.

No picture had done her justice.

He had enough sense to pull a hood over his head, retreat into shadows, but the sight of her pulled him in, like the moon to the tide.

“So,” she said carefully, approaching him slowly, “this is…unexpected.”

“I wanted to meet you in person,” Barry replied. “To talk to you.”

“To tell me where another crime is happening?” she asked. Her hands were loose and at her sides, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t ready with her phone.

He shook his head. “No, I—I wanted to ask you for your help.”

“My help,” she echoed. “What do you think I can do for you?”

He moved closer, making sure not to step too far into the light, his hood covering his face. “I want—I want to—to stop this. Stop living like this. This wasn’t, I wasn’t—I never intended to—”

“To become a criminal?” she asked point blank. He flinched like he’d been hit. “You don’t think it was your fault, choosing to do those crimes?”

“No,” he said immediately, shaking his head empathetically. “It _was_ my fault, I _chose_ to do them, and that’s what makes it worse, because I was raised to know better.”

“Where’s your family?” Iris asked, her voice going softer. “Your parents, are they—”

“My mom’s dead,” Barry said. Fifteen years and saying it still hurt. “And my dad—he’s in prison at Iron Heights for her murder. He didn’t do it, but no one believed him. No one believed _me_ when I told them he didn’t do it _._ I started running cons so I could—pay for a lawyer, a good one, and I started impersonating CSI so I could—I could get experience with science, make sure I could prove something. But—”

“You got in too deep,” Iris murmured.

He gave a strained laugh. “Yeah. And I’ve—I’ve been in with some really nasty people, over the years. And I’ve done things I’m not proud of and I don’t want to do them again. I just—” Stupidly, blindly, a moth going into flame, he stepped closer to her. “I need help.”

“And how do you think that I can help you?” Iris asked. She was coming closer too, moonlight and streetlight playing on her face.

“Your dad, Detective West,” Barry said. “I—you asked me how I know him, and the truth is, I don’t know him at all. I—I stole his wallet and I saw your picture inside it.”

Iris froze in place, disbelief making her eyes go wide and lips purse. She clearly didn’t buy it. “And you started sending me all those clues, all those hints, because—”

He shrugged unhappily. “I couldn’t exactly introduce myself in a coffee shop. I saw your face and—I wanted to know you. Even then.”

Iris was looking at him like he was crazy. But she wasn’t running away. Not yet.

So Barry did the _next_ stupidest thing he’d ever done. He came closer to her, close enough to touch—and pulled back his hood so she could see his face. Her eyes went wider still, taking him in.

“Please,” Barry said. “Help me.”

//

“This is so Robin Hood,” Cisco Ramon muttered in the van parked across the way from Jitters. “A Robin Hood _Romeo and Juliet_ crossover.”  

Detective West glared at him. “I don’t need you comparing my daughter and some criminal to star-crossed lovers.”

“Yeah, but dude come on!” Cisco protested. “You heard him! He totally wants to go straight for her! Give up a life of crime because he saw her picture! That is straight up _textbook_ epic romance right there.”

“He saw her picture because he _stole my wallet,_ ” said Detective West stonily. 

Well, okay. “Makes for a great story to tell the kids?” Cisco suggested. Detective West continued to look unamused.

Cisco turned back to the long distance radio. “Does your daughter _know_ you put a bug on her?”

“It’s for her own safety,” said Detective West grimly.

 _That’s a no._ Cisco couldn’t help but deliver his best side eye. He liked Detective West, sure, but that was just _massively_ Not Cool and poor parenting, regardless of the intentions behind it.

“Do _not_ judge me,” said Detective West.

“I didn’t say anything,” Cisco pointed out. He paused only for a second before adding, “But just so you know, I’m _totally_ judging you. That’s just not cool, man. Detective West,” he corrected himself hastily, under the brunt of West’s glare.

Silence fell over them again as they turned back to the radio. Cisco pressed one balled up fist to his mouth, silently rooting for them.

// 

Iris looked into her mystery informant’s face, a thousand thoughts vying for first in her head and that turned out to be— _I_ knew _it was a guy._  

He was— _young._ So young, barely older than her, with the thin frame of a boy who didn’t have enough to eat growing up and still didn’t as an adult. He was tall, taller than her, lean and lanky, built like a runner. He had a strong jaw and full mouth, long eyelashes shading green eyes. His face was anxious and searching, desperate, looking at her like she was his last hope. And—maybe she was. Iris wasn’t ready to think about that yet.

“Come down to the street with me,” she urged him quietly. “I can—I can call my dad and let him know and we can work out a deal.”

He stepped forward, closer to her, eyes scanning her face intently. “And you’ll be with me?”

Iris took a deep breath and nodded firmly. “I will be. I promise.” She held out her hand. He didn’t hesitate, only took it firmly in his. “Do I finally get a name?”

In the dim light he looked not quite real; something conjured out of her imagination. “Barry,” he said, smiling slight and crooked and something too fragile to be hope. “Barry Allen.”

“Iris West,” she said automatically. “It’s nice to meet you, Barry Allen.”

He squeezed her hand, callouses on his fingers and palms. “Nice to meet you too, Iris West.” His smile broadened when he said her name, eyes crinkling at the corners.

 _Oh,_ Iris thought. _Oh no._ No wonder he’d been such a good conman. A smile like that and you’d believe _anything_ he told you.  

//

They made it to the street before everything went very, very sideways.

Barry hadn’t let go of her hand, mostly to make himself _stay_ in one place, rather than bolting off into the night, never to be seen again, no matter how tempting that sounded. Leaving meant never seeing Iris smile again, and he definitely didn’t want that.

Iris was fumbling in her purse, searching for her phone, also not letting go of his hand. She frowned, pausing to dig something out a side pocket, a puzzled expression abruptly turning into alarm. “Oh no.” Her hand came out of her purse, clenching something small and glinting metal. “ _No,_ ” she said again, looking sick. “Run, Barry—run!”

He looked at the object in her hand and felt sick himself. _A bug._ “Did you—” he started to say, but she wrenched her hand free from his and shoved him, hard, in the opposite direction.

“Go!” she said frantically, “Go _now,_ I swear I didn’t—”

Whatever she had been about to say was lost in a man’s voice saying behind them, “Barry Allen?”

Lead in his stomach, Barry turned slowly, automatically raising his hands above his head. He was confronted with the set, grim, _very_ angry face of Detective Joseph West, who had his gun drawn. “Step away from my daughter,” said the detective, every word carved out of granite. “Hands behind your head; get down on the ground.”

“Dad!” Iris sounded furious, and on the verge of tears. “Dad, don’t—”

“Back. Away. From. My. Daughter,” West ordered Barry, paying no attention to Iris.

For lack of anything better to do (he couldn’t trick or outcon a bullet), Barry obeyed, risking one more glance at Iris, who stared back at him, face distraught. She was still clutching the bug in one hand, knuckles turning white around it.

The thing about being a con, you got really good at reading people’s expressions. Tiny tells gave away they were lying, a fidget of the hands, a darting of the eyes. A good con could tell the difference between a person lying and a person telling the truth with just a glance.

Barry couldn’t see anything but Iris’s dismay and distress and that was when he knew he wasn’t a good con anymore.

He wasn’t a good _anything._

//

Iris could only remember one other time she’d been absolutely furious with her father and that was when she wanted to apply for the police academy and he’d flatly refused to give his approval. They’d moved past that, she’d gotten over it, but still. It was an old wound and it still rankled sometimes. In a detached, clinical mood, she knew her father loved her and wanted to protect her and she _knew,_ beyond a shadow of a doubt that her father would die for her, but right now, Iris wanted to kill him herself.

She stalked up to the desk sergeant once she got to the station, and he only had time to shoot his fellows a look of immense panic and without waiting for a greeting, she said tightly, “I want to talk to Barry Allen.”

The poor desk sergeant gave her a very nervous look. “He’s not receiving visitors right now—”

Iris leaned forward across the desk, baring her teeth in a gesture that was too wide and too fierce to be a smile. “Let me see him or tomorrow morning, there’s going to be a headline about how CCPD is _corrupt_ and _failing_ at their posts.” In a more rational mood, she might’ve felt guilty about leveling the power of the press against the police, but Iris was in no rational mood.

With a look of profound misery, the desk sergeant waved her through and Iris strode past him, stormed into the bullpen, detective and sergeants leaning out of her way, recognizing that Joe West’s daughter was in a towering rage.

She got to the holding cells without a single person getting in her way until—

“Iris,” said her father standing in the hallway, talking to Captain Singh and Iris felt a scream building up in her throat. Joe looked ten years older and two nights past sleep, and Iris could not find it in her heart to be sorry. “Don’t talk to me,” she said her voice low and tight with repressed fury. “I am _furious_ with you right now and I’m not about to having a screaming match with you in front of your coworkers. Just let me see Barry.”

Joe stared at her for a moment before letting his shoulders slump and moved aside to let her pass. Iris stalked past him without looking back, fighting down the burn of tears in her throat. She’d cry later. Right now, she had a job to do.

Barry was sitting in the interrogation room, handcuffed to the table. His head was bowed and his shoulders slumped and he didn’t look up until the door was closed behind her. The corners of his mouth turned down when he saw it was her and he made as if to rise before remembering he couldn’t. He sank back down onto the seat, hands twisting together.

There was a very long silence before Barry asked point blank, “Did you know about the bug?”

Iris took a deep breath and crossed the room, sitting down at the table across from him. “No. I didn’t, I swear. My dad, he’s—protective. I’m not excusing him for what he did and I am…I am _furious_ with him right now, but that’s why. He did it to protect me. In the completely _wrong_ way, but—”

“I don’t blame him,” Barry said softly. “Not for that, I don’t.”

Something in Iris’s heart cracked in half and she dug her nails into her palms to keep herself from doing something stupid (stupider than she had _already_ done). Like breaking Barry out of the cuffs and getting him out of here.

Barry looked at his cuffed hands on the table. “So I’m gonna guess your dad heard our earlier conversation.”

Iris’s face burned with rage and mortification. “I am honestly never going to forgive him for that one.”

“Maybe I can work out a deal,” said Barry, not with much hope in his voice. “Offer up a plea bargain or something.”

Iris reached across the table and laid a hand over his. She couldn’t hold it properly due to the cuffs, but she squeezed it as hard as she could, trying to convey hope and encouragement and reassurance through her grip. “We’re going to get you out of here, I promise.”

//

Joe eased himself into the chair across the table from Barry Allen, trying very hard not to let anything show on his face.

No one had witnessed or overheard the conversation between Iris and Allen (one small mercy), but his daughter had left the station with a grim, crusading light in her eyes. Joe _knew_ that look. That was the look she’d gotten when she wanted to apply for the police academy and they’d had so many fights over it. Now Iris had taken up Allen’s cause, and God help the ones who got in her way.

Allen looked back at him expressionlessly; mouth flat, the expression in his eyes much older than the rest of him. _He’s a_ kid, Joe thought. _No older than Iris, if that._ He’d heard Allen talk to Iris, he sounded well-educated, respectful, even soft-spoken. _He’s a_ con, Joe tried to remind himself. _That means nothing._

“How much of what you told my daughter was true?” he asked Allen.

“All of it,” was the quiet reply. “You only have to look up my name to know that.”

Joe had, the minute Allen had spoken it. It _was_ true. Barry Allen, son of Henry and Nora, a murdered mother and an incarcerated father.  A lifetime of insisting his father was innocent. A bright kid who’d grown up in a broken system, fallen into bad company and was still trying to do _something_ with himself.

“I’m not as trusting as my daughter,” Joe informed him.

The Allen boy cut him a glance. “The fact you put a _bug_ in her purse without her knowledge is a pretty clear indication of that.”

Joe fixed him with a long, hard stare. “And you sending her all those messages, those clues, those _hints—_ what were those? Some kind of a game? You trying to prove you’re clever, smarter than all the cops and criminals in this city?”

“I would never put her in danger,” Allen said with finality. “You don’t have to believe anything else, but you _have_ to believe that.”

“I don’t have to believe anything,” Joe growled. “You’re a crook, remember? Why should I trust anything you say?”

Allen leaned across the table, eyes burning now. Joe had a fleeting moment of being glad he was still handcuffed. Allen’s voice was fierce and unrelenting. “Why would I do _any_ of this if I didn’t want to change? I could’ve picked the cuffs, the lock on the door and been on my way before anyone noticed I was gone.”

Joe looked at him hard and Allen smiled, a sharp, mirthless thing. “Not telling you where my picks are, though.”

Joe leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “You say you want to go straight, you want me to believe you? Don’t lie. And if you want to work out some kind of deal with my captain, you need to come up with a _really_ good reason.”

Allen seemed to consider this for a moment, before saying matter-of-factly, “I know most of the criminals in the city. I know how they think, where they go, and what targets they’re most likely to hit. I’m not bad at science and I’m decent with a computer. Let me help at CCPD and I’ll prove myself.”

 _Singh’s gonna_ love _this,_ Joe thought resignedly.

//

When Barry was done talking to Detective West, two other officers took him a holding cell and left him there without a word. Barry fell asleep in the hard narrow bunk and woke up some indeterminate time later.

He wondered, in a distant, distracted sort of way, how long he’d live if Snart or any other criminal found out what he’d done. He had a trump card for that though. He’d made sure to. He wondered if Iris would come back, if Detective West would get him out.

He wondered what his father would say.

The cell door creaked open. Still wearing the suit from the night before, looking rumpled and smelling like strong coffee, Detective West stood in the doorway, brows creased. “Let’s go, Allen,” he said shortly.

Barry sat up slowly, joints aching and stomach growling ferociously. “Where’re we going?”

“To get this settled,” Detective West replied.

Three hours later, Barry had an ankle bracelet (courtesy of an eager tech that clapped Barry on the shoulder and said, “We’re all rooting for you, buddy,” which had been nice, but also very confusing), a lot of new paperwork, a duffle bag filled with everything he owned (it wasn’t much) and apparently, a room in Detective West’s _house._ “Conditions of the arrangement,” West informed him. “If you don’t like it, we can find you a nice cell next to your father in Iron Heights.”

Barry had only nodded. He thought of red and yellow lightning and standing in a darkened street, his whole life changed in only a matter of moments.

It felt like that now.

The ride to Detective West’s house was passed in silence. They only stopped to grab some food from Big Belly Burger, which Barry devoured gratefully. Detective West watched him eat with narrowed eyes. Barry flushed, and he wondered if he had ketchup and mustard on his face.

“When’s the last time you ate something?” Detective West asked abruptly.

Barry blinked, trying to recollect. “Um—I think last afternoon.”

“We need to get some flesh on you boy,” Detective West muttered. “You’re so damn skinny a strong wind could knock you over.”

Barry stared at the remains of the food in his lap, trying to not let his eyes burn. He couldn’t remember the last time an adult in his life fussed over him.

The West house was large, comfortable, lived in, not that far from Barry’s childhood house. He got out of the car, stood on the porch and looked around the street, his head swimming with déjà vu.

“Come on inside,” Detective West said and Barry followed. Iris West stood in the foyer, arms folded across her chest. Her gaze softened when she saw Barry, but she didn’t smile at her father. “I made up the guest bedroom,” she told Barry, still not looking at Detective West.

Barry shifted uncomfortably as Detective West cleared his throat. “Iris—”

“I’ll show him where the room is,” Iris said as if her father hadn’t spoken and without waiting for confirmation, turned on her heel and headed up the stairs. Barry hesitated before following after her, careful not to catch Detective West’s eye. Reluctant sympathy stung his throat.  “Sorry,” he whispered to Detective West as he slipped up after Iris, not sure _why_ he said it, but it seemed like the thing to do.

The room was comfortable and lived in like the rest of the house, simply but well furnished. A few photographs were on the walls, mostly of Iris and Joe at various ages, one of a much younger Joe with his arm around a woman with Iris’s eyes and smile.

“My mom,” said Iris simply. “She died when I was younger too.”

“We should start a club,” Barry muttered. “The Dead Moms Club.”

Iris actually snorted, the corners of her mouth twitching reluctantly. “We should get t-shirts.”

They looked at each other, a little shy, a little uncertain. “I was given express instructions by my dad and Captain Singh I was not to be alone with you under any circumstances,” Iris said finally. “Seeing as how they already ignored _my_ preferences, I don’t see why I should mind _theirs._ ”

A warm feeling blossomed in Barry’s chest, but he said seriously, “Your dad and the captain already have enough misgivings about this arrangement. I don’t want to give them any more reasons to doubt.”

Iris eyed him askance for a moment before shaking her head. “For a former criminal, you seem to care an awful lot about _rules._ ”

Barry sighed and heaved his duffle bag on his bed. “Before I started running jobs, I tried _really hard_ to follow all the rules. I thought if I did that, I could somehow prove I was a good person, not just the son of a murderer and maybe somehow, prove my dad’s innocence too. But following the rules never seemed to get me anywhere. And then I thought, _well screw this then,_ and started doing cons instead. I thought if the system was broken to begin with, it didn’t matter if someone screwed it over.” He looked down at the ankle bracelet on his right leg and said ruefully, “You can see where that got me.”

Iris studied him, dark eyes thoughtful and considering. “You think it’s going to be hard? Trying not to fall back into old habits?”

“The hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Barry said honestly. “I’m lucky to have help.”

Iris stared at him, eyebrows rising. “You call having an ankle bracelet and being under _house arrest_ lucky?”

“It’ll keep me accountable,” Barry said. “I’ll be less likely to slip up if you or your dad is around to remind me of what’s at stake.”

She stared at him, her brow furrowing. “You are…remarkably accepting of this situation.”

“For a con,” said Barry, smiling crookedly. “That’s really not saying much.”

Iris shook her head, clearly somewhat disbelieving. “I’ll let you get settled in.”

She was nearly out the door before Barry called after her, “Iris?” She stopped and looked at him, head tilted in question. “Don’t stay mad at your dad for long, okay?” Barry said softly. “I mean, you’re totally right to be mad. I don’t blame you for that. But he was—he’s just looking out for you. Granted, he went about it totally the wrong way. Like I said, I don’t blame him for wanting to protect you either.”

Iris stared at him again, as if he had suddenly sprouted a second head. “My dad _arrested_ you.”

“He was just doing his job as a cop,” Barry said. “Catching criminals like me. God knows if I would do the same if I were in his position.”

Any reply Iris might’ve made was lost at the sound of a heavy tread on the stairs. Iris gave him one more unfathomable look and left, heading in the opposite direction of the footsteps.

Detective West appeared in the doorway this time, face severe. “If you and my daughter are going to be in the same room, I need the door _open,_ you understand?”

“Yes sir,” said Barry quietly.

Detective West peered at him, a furrow in his brow giving him a strong, sudden resemblance to his daughter. “When you’re here at the house, you call me Joe, alright? You can call me sir on the job, or Detective West.”

“Okay,” Barry said, and at the sudden frown, added hastily, “Joe.”

Detective West— _Joe_ —sighed and leaned against the doorjamb. “I’m about to very honest with you, Allen. This goes south and you turn back to your old ways, it’s on both of our heads. I don’t want that and I don’t think you do either.”

“No sir—I mean, Joe,” Barry said. “I know—I know what’s at stake here.”

“I hope you do,” Joe muttered dubiously. “I must be going out of my damn mind.”

He left Barry then, looking around the first room he’d had to himself since he was eleven.

He sat down on the bed, testing the firmness, a foolish smile tugging at his mouth. A bed of his own, a room with a door and…an ankle bracelet.

“Nothing’s perfect,” Barry said to the air and let himself fall back.

//

 _Six months later_  

“Who ate all the pizza?” Joe hollered irately.

“Not me!” shouted two voices from opposite corners of the house.

“It had to be _somebody,_ ” Joe yelled back.

“Barry ate it,” Iris called as his indignant voice retorted, “ _You_ took half of it for your lunch!”

“I am too old for this nonsense,” Joe muttered.

He wasn’t entirely sure how, at past the age of fifty, he was suddenly back to raising kids again, because that’s what it felt like. And strangely enough, he couldn’t bring himself to mind it as much as he should.

Barry had brought _something_ to the West house, color, light, energy. Laughter. It had always been Joe and Iris, after Francine, but now it was Joe, Iris _and_ Barry, rounding out their little family unit. He and Iris seemed to fall into the kind of friendship that most people only achieved after a lifetime and Barry was already proving himself on the force. Mostly to keep associates from his own life from catching up to him, Barry had taken to introducing himself Barry West-Allen, or Barry Garrick, the maiden name of his paternal grandmother. The ankle bracelet had been taken off earlier due to good behavior, and he wasn’t under house arrest anymore.  

It wasn’t easy. Some days found Barry restlessly roaming the house, standing on the doorway, looking out onto the street, or hands shoved into pockets when he went out with Joe on cases, eyes darting around when entering a new room as if counting all the exits. He stayed up late talking to Iris, as if she were the anchor to this new life of his. Eventually, he started staying up late with Joe too, keeping him company during writing reports or looking through old case files. They started combing through file of Nora Allen’s murder, Barry looking urgently for something he didn’t have a name for yet.

“Bare, what are you looking for here exactly?” Joe finally asked him one night, when Iris had gone to bed and Barry was still sitting at the dining room table, papers scattered about.

Barry had blinked blearily in the dim light, face in shadow. “I’m looking for the impossible,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Joe let one hand rest on Barry’s shoulder, shaking him gently. “The impossible’s not going anywhere, son,” he said, the _son_ coming automatically to his lips. “Go to bed.”

And Barry had. That was the first time Joe realized that in the span of six months, he’d acquired another child.  

Now though, he grumbled darkly to himself about getting eaten out of house and home, letting the fridge swing shut, resigning himself to a pizza-less afternoon.

//

“You know dad’s not gonna like it if you leave without telling him,” Iris said, sitting on the edge of Barry’s bed, watching him toss random articles of clothing into a suitcase.

“I’ll be gone for _one_ day, at most,” Barry reasoned. “Back by tomorrow morning, at the _latest._ Plenty of time to make it back in time for the particle accelerator turning on tomorrow. And I don’t have the ankle bracelet anymore! I won’t have the entire CCPD on my ass if I leave the city limits.”

Iris gave him a dubious look. “And what’s so important that you _have_ to go to Star City and risk my dad getting mad at you?”

Barry grinned, the giddy feeling of running a con fizzing through his veins, the thrill of the game. “An impossible case. And a chance to look into the Vigilante that’s been running around the city.”

“The crazy guy who shoots people with arrows?” Iris said disbelievingly. “I’ve read the reports. He’s got a body count. Isn’t a guy like that _exactly_ the kind you want to avoid?”

“Not if I don’t commit any crimes!” Barry said, perhaps far too cheerfully. Iris did not look reassured.

“You’re coming back though, right?” she said finally, when Barry finally managed to close his suitcase. “You’re just not going to—run off and disappear, are you?”

Barry instantly froze, staring at her with wide eyes. “Why would I leave?” he asked. He sounded so _surprised,_ as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, him coming back, hardly worth mentioning.

Iris ducked her head, letting her hand smooth down nonexistent wrinkles in the coverlet. “Sometimes I worry that you’ll get tired of this life, decide to disappear,” she admitted to the bedspread, finding it easier to talk to than Barry at the moment. “Promise—promise you’ll come back?”

Large, warm hands enfolded her own. Startled, Iris looked up into Barry’s face, unexpectedly close to her own, wide green eyes suddenly, warmly serious. He was kneeling on the floor in front of her, their faces level. “Where else would I go?” he asked her gently. “You’re where I live.”

“… _Oh,_ ” said Iris faintly.

Barry grinned, an abashed, slightly sheepish thing. “I was gonna tell you after I spent year on the right side of the law, but…”

“ _Oh,_ ” Iris said again, heat rushing up into her cheeks. “You’re—you’re going from zero to sixty there, Mister.”

Barry laughed shyly and then, seized by an unexpected courage, planted a quick, light kiss on her cheek. “When I come back from Star City, we’ll have a proper date.”

Iris squeezed his hands, relief and wonder and giddy delight rushing through her. “A proper date? At Jitters?”

“Anywhere you want,” Barry promised and Iris suddenly understood a conman’s hunger for life, for running and never, ever stopping.    
        
 

 

**Author's Note:**

> presumably, the rest of the series continues as it usually does from here, only clearly, Iris and Barry are together and Barry is lot quicker at catching Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawn's obvious shadiness. this au was inspired by a sudden thought on how Barry's actually a much more effective liar than he lets on.


End file.
